The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. Add to that more than 3,000 tipsheets from our national conferences on how to cover specific beats or do specific stories and you have a resource that no reporter or editor should be without. These stories and tipsheets are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Logged-in members can view the tipsheets free online:
Search results for "state government" ...
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Inside baseball: What data journalism can learn from sports
This panel will identify areas for data journalism exploration by examining the current state-of-the-art baseball data analysis. Sports are the original form of data journalism -- box scores predate open government movements by about a century. And Joseph Adler's "Baseball Hacks" trained newbie Web CAR reporters how to scrape and analyze data sets using Perl and MySQL. Finally, sports analytics are a leading indicator for other kinds of analysis. Sensors, economic analysis, leverage are all de rigeur in baseball but still up-and-coming in data journalism. We'll take the concepts being used to analyze baseball, football, soccer and apply them to standard data journalism chores.
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Mining for Gold in County and State Government
Shipp provides useful tips for mining through your county and state government agencies, including how to deal with employees who aren't familiar dealing with reporters and what to know before you even talk to them.
Tags: mining; local; county; state; government agency
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Covering a corrupt state agency
Trying to expose a corrupt state agency can be tricky, especially if the agency is secretive and exempt from FOIA laws. Bombardieri provides several tips and tricks to getting inside information from a seemingly impossible source.
Tags: campaign finance; lawsuits; state payroll
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How Well Does Your State Oversee Nurses (and pharmacists, dentists, psychologists...)?
Government oversight can be tricky when it comes to our caregivers. Find out who is overseeing your nurse, and whether or not they are qualified to be evaluating such performances.
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Immigration
Preston provides an extensive list of links to information online to aid in your coverage of immigration issues. Links include information from: the US government, state laws, law websites, data, and immigration debates.
Tags: immigration; immigrants; data; government; law
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Contacts, Strategies and resources for Border and Immigration Coverage
Olsen provides an extensive lists of resources for covering issues related to immigration - including US Government sites/data, Mexican nonprofit organizations, key journalism sites, think tanks, lawyers, and much more
Tags: immigration; human rights; boarder patrol; boarder states; crime statistics; legal issues; immigrants; immigration studies
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Open Records - Legal Road Blocks and Resources
This tipsheet provides links to information illuminating the legal landscape of access to information under state and federal statutes.
Tags: private individuals; decendents; privacy rights; corporations; government employees
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Starting in the Neighborhood
Hall describes how to build a network of sources, and dig into data and reports, and examine the performance of local government. He talks about proactive reporting through attending public meetings and meeting people.
Tags: sources; public meetings; data; FOIA; public records; beats; statistics; interviewing
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Following the Money: From Grade School through College
This tipsheet discusses how to track education funding from grade school through higher education. The data sources used for example are the Illinois State Board of Education and Property Tax Revenue from the Illinois Department of Revenue. Lowenstein advises on where to look for education funding: local property taxes; commercial and industrial property taxes; local and federal governments; test scores by region; other supplemental income for schools
Tags: education; taxes; property taxes; department of revenue; education funding; testing; test scores
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Resources for Covering California's State Capitol
Joseph created a list of resources when covering the Capitol in Sacramento, Calif. His list includes a brief description of what information is available through each resource, along with the pertinent links.
Tags: California government; capitol reporting; state senates; Cal-Access; California Legislature; Cal Channel; Capitol Morning Report; Legislative Analyst's Office; LAO; Department of Personnel Administration; California Fair Political Practices Commission; Leginfo; California Election History